Common Data Elements Reported in Mechanical Thrombectomy for Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Systematic Review of Active Clinical Trials

Abstract

Background: New trials are planned regularly to provide the highest quality of evidence and invade new occlusion territories, which requires a pre-defined reporting strategy with consistent, common data elements for more straightforward collective evidence synthesis. We sought to review all active endovascular thrombectomy trials to investigate their patient selection criteria, intervention description, and reported outcomes. Methods: A literature search was systematically conducted on clinicaltrials.gov for active trials and all intervention, inclusion criteria, and outcomes reported were extracted. A qualitative synthesis of the frequency of study design types and data elements are graphically and narratively presented. Results: A total of 32 studies were tagged and included in the final qualitative analysis. The inclusion criteria were highly variable, including different cut-offs for the last well-known baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score, and modified Rankin scale (mRS). Half of the studies (16/32) mentioned “thrombectomy” without defining which technique or device was used, and the final thrombolysis in cerebral infarction scale was provided in 19 (59.4%) studies. Heterogeneity was also present among the studies reporting a first-pass effect, both in how studies defined the outcome and in used ranges for mRS. Mortality and intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) were more homogenous in their presentation and follow-up. Conclusions: There is a great degree of heterogeneity in the active thrombectomy trials concerning inclusion criteria, interventions used, and how outcomes are being reported.

Common design and data elements on rectal artery embolization for treatment of symptomatic internal hemorrhoidal disease: an interactive systematic review of clinical trials

“…The NK AutoLit platform searching function enables exploring an extensive database of records using specific keywords. This creates an orderly framework for conducting literature reviews and meta-analyses, ensuring robust, reliable, and reproducible processes [ 15 – 17 ]. We queried five online databases (PubMed, Embase, Google Scholar, DOAJ, and Scopus) using the search terms ' ((Rectal artery) AND (Embolization OR Emborrhoid OR percutaneous OR transcatheter)) AND (Hemorrhoids OR Hemorrhoidal disease OR haemorrhoidal disease) ' on November 20, 2022.…”